Content warning: death by suicide, mental wellness, medical scenes, therapy scenes, flashing lights, blood, gore
Editorial note: Smile deals with intense issues of trauma, mental wellness, and psychiatric evaluation. The horror is built on the perception of reality and sanity. It is an intense film grappling with these issues. Make sure you are in a safe place to experience this film. I personally struggled a lot. It’s well-done, but it’s on the same level of intensity as Depression Quest.
In Smile, Dr. Rose Carter is a dedicated psychiatrist working in a psychiatric hospital. She witnesses a patient die by suicide after complaining of unexplainable hallucinations. Now she, too, sees the thing that’s not quite human smiling an awful smile wherever she goes. Bad things, too, begin to fall upon her.
Smile is one of the most intense horror films to grapple with mental wellness since Marina de Van’s In My Skin in 2002. There are plenty of horror films that touch on mental illness, but very few that actually explore mental health as the substance of their horror. Writer/director Parker Finn does a tremendous job handling his generational trauma conceit with a whole lot of nuance and sensitivity.
Honestly, my big issues with the film are my own. It’s uncomfortable to see a horror film explore similar issues to things you have experienced. Not that I have hallucinations of inhuman beings smiling at me, but I have been in the “my perception of reality doesn’t match what I know reality to be due to trauma” place before. It’s terrifying and Smile brought up some real issues I’m still working through. The film felt safe, but I did not entirely feel safe grappling with the film at this time.
Smile is an excellent horror film filled with genuine scares. Sosie Bacon’s turn as Dr. Rose is one of those horror breakout performances we celebrate for years to come. So much of the film relies on her ability to balance the logic and doubt of a psychiatrist who knows what she sees cannot be real. The physical manifestation of the horror’s greatest power is being so unbelievable that no one else can comprehend it. What she sees is too strange to be true, so anything bad that happens has to be an accident or, much worse, an intentional action.
For those in the headspace to handle such a heavy film, Smile is a brutal and disturbing horror film. I’m excited to revisit this in the future when I’m in a better space to grapple with a horror film exploring how we treat mental wellness in the United States. The reality of that is scary enough for me right now.
Smile is playing in theaters.
